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Ecommerce Forum of South Africa

Drs Alastair Tempest is the CEO of Ecommerce Forum Africa (EFA) since 2020 and CEO of the Ecommerce Forum South Africa (EFSA) since 2016.

Previously, he has served as the President of the South African Institute of Interactive Marketing and COO of the Direct Marketing Association of South Africa.

In Europe, he worked for the Confederation of British Business and Independent Television in London. He was the Director-General of the European Advertising Tripartite, Director of European Public Affairs for Reader’s Digest, and Director-General of the Federation of European Direct & Interactive Marketing in Brussels, Belgium.

He chaired the Self-Regulatory and Consumer Protection working party of the Global Dialogue on Ecommerce and was a member of the International Chamber of Commerce’s (ICC) Marketing and Telecoms commissions for over 30 years.

As CEO of the EFSA he sits as Business Unity SA’s digital trade expert on the National Economic Development and Labour Council (Nedlac)’s Technical Sectoral Liaison Committee (Teselico). He is a member of the BIAC (OECD business body) Digital Policy Committee, the B20 Digital Transformation Committee, and the ICC’s Global Digital Economy Commission. He is Deputy Chair of the Payment Association of SA’s Card Stakeholder Forum.

He wrote four Opinion Papers for the South African Institute of International Affairs in 2020-21, on ecommerce as a driving force for the AfCFTA; the digital disruption and the AfCFTA; Regional Value Chains and the AfCFTA; and Driving digital inclusion within the AfCFTA. These papers are available on the SAIIA website (OrgHome). The three latest were co-authored. He contributed a chapter to E-Commerce in South Africa (2023, www.Juta.co.za ).

He has a BA (Hons) from the University of York, the UK, an MA from the College of Europe, Bruges, Belgium and read for his PhD at the University of Ghent, Belgium.